Xbox All-Stars Battle Royale
by SirDeathShriek
Summary: Forty people, drawn by a force they can't possibly understand, each motivated to fight until there are no opponents left standing. A look at an Xbox version of Playstation All-Stars with some creative tweaking and a light amount of prose. Featuring an iconic cast of characters from games old and new.
1. Aboard Forward Unto Dawn

XBOX ALL STARS BATTLE ROYALE

**Signal located, aboard the wreckage of UNSC flagship, _Forward Unto Dawn_...**

It's done. The universe is safe, but are _we_? According to the Forerunners, even the universe has an expiration date.

This half of the _Dawn_ floats in an uncharted territory of space, far away from Earth. She's earned her rest. I'd like to think that by watching over _him_, by making sure that during his slumber he can dream about whatever man made super soldiers dream about in peace, I'm earning mine.

But I don't like to think about resting. Sleep has never attracted me. Keeping the life support systems online, I'm ashamed to admit, takes up about a third of my attention. A set of eyes that never blink, vigilant, maintaining power, detecting anomalies, replacing parts with what little resources this half of the _Dawn_ has left.

At times, a part of me thinks that he and I will never leave this place. Part of me thinks that John will rest here forever. I will never get the chance to wake him from cryogenic sleep. He is already in his casket. How do burials happen in space? They attach the casket, the pyre, to a rocket and the monkeys blast it off into space.

I will never need him. I contain the last known records of a super-advanced alien race, a fleet of information detailing all their technology, their goals, their poets and their mathematics. I will never need him or his kind. John's far more intelligent ancestors have given me more than enough.

I confess; sometimes-

Cortana.

My eyes dart to the left. I heard my own name, bouncing off of a wall somewhere. It was his voice.

Cortana.

I come back to the cryo deck. I'd forgotten which deck he was on, and since we destroyed the Ark and the Flood infestation there, I haven't spent too much time down here. John's in pod number seventeen. I find that oddly amusing. A console materialized in front of me so that I could inspect his vitals. They're nominal.

John was okay, but I know I heard his voice. Yet he's right there, I'm staring at his sleeping body, but I know I heard his voice. I have to ask myself the question now and then. We beat back the Flood, we dismantled the Covenant. We survived a voyage to the other side of the Milky Way and all the fires of Hell that chased us on our way back. But are we really safe out here, tumbling through the stars, entangled in the constellations of other alien species?

What if a haughty alien astrologist spies us in their looking glass and sends a war party out to destroy us?

I left John's body in that cryogenic tomb and leave to a different deck. Days without staring at John: I scratch out the previous number and leave a zero in its place.

For entertainment, I peer into the Forerunner's archives from time to time. While we were on the Ark, John passed by a number of computer terminals, and while he was busy pulverizing alien skulls and pumping the baddies full of lead, I spent some time hacking in.

Here's something interesting. Like I said before, the Forerunners figured out an expiration date for the universe. No, not a conspiracy theory baked just for Earth, or a species-isolated apocalypse, but the universe itself. I wonder if they factor in the Ark.

They say it's a cosmic phenomenon related to a rapidly-growing black hole unlike any we or any other civilization has ever seen. It grows bigger and bigger... and as it does, everything else shrinks. It grows and grows, pulling planets, stars, entire asteroid belts, all sorts of weird things. A giant, intergalactic sink without a stopper.

I can picture a stress ball being clenched, all of its insides getting crushed in the process.

Of course, the Forerunners are long deceased, and I'm pretty sure there's nothing really supporting their supposed 'expiration date', this _grand_ implosion.

Investigating the date is third on my to-do-list. Right behind playing chess with my own subroutines during maintenance lags. I'm certain we'll be drifting for awhile, decades perhaps. Get off my back, I have time.

Perhaps I've spoken too soon, because the ship, our half of the _Dawn_, pulses with life. I don't know what it was, but it's coming from outside. A quick view of ship systems shows that we're not approaching any planet. There aren't any ships in scanning range. We're not caught in an asteroid cluster. Did a comet hit us? No.

And the ship groans and rumbles, like both ends are being pushed together by the hands of some malevolent, alien god.

I see John's helmet again, back in the cryobay. The MJOLNIR armor's firmware upgrade wasn't complete.

The console flashes: RE-ACTIVATION.

Did I do that?

I watched as the bulkhead opened. The green giant awoke. I'd forgotten to bring him his breakfast. That usually precluded John killing things in a merciless, tireless fashion for an extensive period of time.


	2. The Other Bad Day

**S**o... there I am. King. King of aaaaall' the land.

Well who'd 'a thought that? Heh. Not me.

_Long live the king._

I guess you know who these guys are now, cause I certainly do. Sigh. I didn't want to know them.

_Long live the king._

And yup; I may be king. I have all the money in the world. And all the land. And all that stuff. But you know - I don't really think I want it. I just wanna go home. With Berri. And... I don't know... have a bottle of beer.

Hmm. Sigh. That's not gonna happen.

It's true what they say. The grass is always greener. And you don't really know what it is you have... until it's gone... gone...

...

Gone.

* * *

Conker's Other Bad Day

...

...night fell over the little tavern, The Cock'n Plucker, where King Conker the Squirrel was on his final drink of the night. Being King of All the Land had its privileges, such as running up enormous bar tabs and having a servant eventually repay them. But not every member of the king's court was working in good faith. A few weeks into his reign, some of his servants got whiny and said they'd put up with enough of his shit.

Ha. They didn't know even know the definition of _shit_. Let them fight a giant, opera-singing turd and then see their new lease on life.

He stepped outside, frowning at the sky. He mumbled, "Look's like it's gonna' be a bad one tonight."

Conker wobbled forward, the alcohol throwing his balance off. There were two directions. Left, and Right. An eerie sense of deja' vu overwhelmed him. He swung his head left, and bile moistened his throat.

He swung his head to the right. Right seemed pleasant enough, as pleasant as a stormy night as could be. His left foot went first, and his right foot followed suit. Conker padded in the direction of, well, not home, but the castle that was now his new home.

Into the darkness, crown dangling off the side of his head. It began to rain even harder, and there were splashes as the crown tumbled to the ground. But by that time, Conker was long gone.

There came another peal of thunder and it was still dark out when the crownless king finally passed out from exhaustion.

To think. All that stood between him and a really, really bad day was a few hours of sleep.


	3. Saints of Rage

XBOX ALL-STARS BATTLE ROYALE

I started out with nothing, just a kid from the streets with nothing to lose. But then I met Julius and everything changed.

"Welcome to the Third Street Saints," he'd said. "And remember, winners don't use drugs."

Once I joined the Third Street Saints, everything started going my way. I'd run some jobs, get paid, and lady luck was on my side.

I had the women, the clothes, the rides. But even all that wasn't enough. I wanted more. I wanted everything. That's the great thing about Stilwater, you alien fucks. It's there for the taking.

If you got what it takes.

* * *

"Nurse, please situate Mister Gat in Simulation Three Hundred Sixty-One while we prepare a fresh prison for him based off of his psychological evaluation. I'm afraid this patient is too homicidal to be placed in any of the regular simulations with other prisoners. We'll need to give him something a lot stronger, more action-oriented."

"Are you sure that's necessary?"

"He melted the face of a fellow inmate with a pot full of boiling water in the last one."

* * *

**Saints of Rage**: **Zin Simulation #361**


End file.
